FOTechHub Bulletin: Family Office Technology News Roundup – April, 2024

Company News

 

Luminary Secures Convertible Note Financing, Rudy Adolf Joins as Board Advisor: Luminary Platforms, Inc. (Luminary) has closed a convertible note financing round with the support of its existing investors, including 8VC, Focus Financial Partners, and Rockefeller Asset Management. after making a personal investment, Rudy Adolf, founder and former CEO of Focus Financial Partners, will join Luminary’s board as an advisor. This financial boost adds additional resources to the execution of Luminary’s commercial strategy as well as continued product development. Luminary is a software platform dedicated to trust and estate planning services. The company was founded in 2021 by David Barnard, former Head of Wealth Management at AllianceBernstein, and Joe Lonsdale, managing partner at 8VC and founder of several software companies including Addepar, Palantir, and OpenGov. 

 

iCapital Completes Acquisition of Mirador: iCapital has completed its acquisition of Mirador, enhancing its investment data management and financial reporting capabilities. The deal brings over 180 Mirador employees to iCapital, including former CEO Joseph Larizza, who now serves as Managing Director. Financial advisors for the transaction were Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and Goodwin Proctor LLP for iCapital, with Raymond James and DBM Legal Services LLC advising Mirador. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

 

Trustate and Interactive Legal Forge Partnership for Estate Planning: Trustate, a platform for trust and estate administration, has partnered with Interactive Legal, a provider of estate planning document drafting systems. The partnership offers legal professionals reciprocal discounts and a suite of solutions to enhance productivity and accuracy in estate planning and administration. Trustate offers features such as automated task completion, tailored workflows, asset/liability discovery tools, and fiduciary accountings, while Interactive Legal brings to the table expertise in document drafting systems for trust & estate attorneys, elder lawyers, and special needs planners as well as its continuing education program.

Arch Unveils AI Tools for Streamlined Private Investment Management: Arch, a digital private investments administration platform, rolled out AI-driven, tax-related and other tools for financial advisors, private investment firms, and accountants. Specific features include AI Summaries for quick access to critical details in bulleted format, Financial Visualization for tracking investment performance, and a K-1 EIN Tax Validation system to check accuracy in investor tax documents. Additionally, Arch has introduced improved table navigation and search for a deeper understanding of underlying investments, exposures and valuations through views into amount of capital invested or performance across a geography, asset class, manager, or client. This follows a recent set of enhancements, including Direct Company Insights, the centralized Statement Tracker dashboard. Arch’s portal tracks tens of thousands of positions, encompassing nearly $80 billion in alternative investments.

 

Chronograph Launches ‘Chrono AI’ for Enhanced Private Equity Data Analysis: Chronograph has introduced “Chrono AI,” a new artificial intelligence solution for private equity investors. This technology, designed to process and analyze extensive investment data in the cloud, assists limited partners in extracting insights from their portfolio monitoring data. “Chrono AI” enables private equity investors to gain key insights on fund and company performance, market and industry updates, transaction activities, outlooks for investments, news on management teams, and ESG reporting from any document on Chronograph’s LP platform. Chrono AI is available for all Chronograph LP clients to interface with the various documents they keep on Chronograph, spanning quarterly reports, capital accounts statements, partnership financials, capital calls and distributions, legal notices, formation documents, LPAs, and AGM materials. In 2023, the company expanded by opening a new office in London and launching Snowbank, a service for data warehousing of private equity portfolio data. Chronograph serves over 175,000 PE-backed companies and manages assets worth $20 trillion.

 

CohnReznick Debuts Digital Advisory Practice: CohnReznick launched a new Digital Advisory Practice to guide businesses in leveraging digital innovation for growth and efficiency. The practice, led by Shawn Gilronan, combines expertise in AI, automation, cloud solutions, data analytics, and digital transformation. The practice, supported by partnerships with major technology providers like Microsoft and Oracle NetSuite, will collaborate with CohnReznick’s CFO advisory, client advisory, cybersecurity, technology risk and privacy practices to deliver solutions in finance automation, integrated business planning and outsourced accounting. 

 

 

Product Updates and Partnerships 

 

FundCount Enhances Client Dashboards with Microsoft Power BI: FundCount has integrated Microsoft Power BI into its client dashboards, which improves how family offices and asset managers report and interact with investment data. Power BI connects to over 200 data sources and allows users to customize existing dashboards and reports or create their own. The tool helps in understanding data through visualisations and natural language processing capabilities. For example, Power BI Q&A allows users to ask questions about their data in plain language. Power BI is part of the Microsoft Office 365 Suite and it is free for its users. See it in action here. Power BI is an increasingly popular reporting integration; it can help solve the traditional weakness of low customisability of integrated accounting systems reporting. See more our in-depth report on integrated systems.

 

Vanilla Bolsters Estate Planning Suite with New User Capabilities: Vanilla has enhanced its estate planning tools with new AI features in VAI Estate Builder for streamlined document reviews, and advanced strategies for GRATs and SLATs in Vanilla Scenarios, which were already announced in March. The Estate Builder now includes advanced distribution capabilities, and the Vanilla Document Builder offers an Attorney Engagement option. Users can now obtain financial and medical powers of attorney for adult children through a new document creation package. These features aim to deliver modern estate planning for all wealth levels. Advisors also have new payment flexibility, and firms can add custom disclosures to reports. Additionally, a forthcoming feature will facilitate faster spreadsheet imports of balance sheet data.

 

WealthHub Launches BOI Reporting Module, Integrates with Addepar and Expands Sales Team: WealthHub Solutions, a CRM and trust administration enterprise platform for trust companies and family offices, joined Addepar’s partner program and expanded its sales team. Marshall Johnson joined as VP of sales and promoted Brittany von Czoernig to director of sales. WealthHub’s CRM serves over 70 clients- up from a dozen three years ago. 

WealthHub has also created a Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) Reporting module that allows for the determination and tracking of BOI reporting requirements per the Corporate Transparency Act, as well as automated data collection for BOI reports and electronic reporting to FinCen. The new module in WealthHub, which is built on Salesforce, streamlines FinCEN compliance by identifying which entities need to report or are exempt, pinpointing beneficial owners based on ownership or control, and automatically collecting all necessary data for these entities and owners from within WealthHub. Users can review, edit, or add missing information, and format this data to meet FinCEN reporting standards. In the near future, electronic filing will be available. The module also monitors internal changes in WealthHub, like updates to addresses, ownership percentages, or ID documents, to prompt necessary revisions in the CTA filings. The module is available to current WealthHub subscribers. 

 

iPaladin BOI Reporting & CTA Compliance Capabilities: Continuing on the topic of BOI Reporting and CTA: iPaladin released a “Family Office Guide to CTA Compliance” offering a practical blueprint for navigating CTA regulations and highlighting iPaladin’s compliance capabilities such as SmartRecord technology to streamline e-filing and enhance collaboration with legal counsel; integrating the document archive into collaborative workflows, prompted decision points helping to keep track of filings and accommodating family dynamics such as trust terminations, generational transitions, and minors becoming adults. 

 

Canoe Intelligence and Mammoth Technology Partner to Streamline Alternative Investment Management:  Canoe Intelligence and Mammoth Technology have partnered to enhance the visibility and management of alternative investments for their mutual clients. This partnership leverages Mammoth’s expertise in pre-investment workflows with Canoe’s post-investment solutions. It formalises a partnership where clients use Canoe for ‘maker’ services, and leverage Mommoth for ‘checker’ services that complement the data Canoe has processed. This collaboration aims to provide mutual clients with a more comprehensive management system from investment selection and subscription to portfolio management, reporting, and cash flows.

 

Asset Vantage to Launch AI Feature for Clients to Query Their Own Data: Asset Vantage announced a new AI-powered feature that allows users – families and their advisors – to instantly access insights by querying their own financial data with simple text queries, for example on net worth changes, investment allocations, and current cash balances. The feature is set to launch in April 2024 and will be available for subscription to existing AV Pro Single Family Office customers. Also see a summary of a roundtable discussion on AI in family office recently hosted by FOTechHub.

 

SoftLedger Partners with Lukka to Boost Crypto Asset Accounting: SoftLedger and Lukka have partnered to enhance SoftLedger’s SaaS accounting software with Lukka’s blockchain data solutions. This collaboration will support businesses with high transaction volumes and complex crypto asset management on their balance sheets by integrating Lukka’s data infrastructure. The partnership aims to streamline financial reporting and management for businesses engaging in both traditional and crypto asset ventures.

 

K1x’s Enhanced Features for Improved Tax Compliance: K1x announced several updates in their latest product release. New features include Aggregated K-1 Data Transfer, Trust Returns UBI/GoSystem RS Export, and improved whitepaper statement extractions, amongst other enhancements requested by clients. 

 

Moving and Grooving

 

New CEO at RSM International: RSM has appointed Ernest “E.J.” Nedder as the new CEO for RSM International, effective June 1, 2024, succeeding Jean Stephens. Nedder, currently a Partner and Chief Strategy Officer at RSM US LLP, has driven significant growth in the US tax practice over his 26-year tenure and led major business and digital transformations. Stephens will transition to a senior advisory role after her tenure as CEO. RSM International operates as a global network of independent accounting firms in 120 countries, including RSM US LLP.

 

Michael Balt Joins AgilLink as VP of Business Development to Boost Family Office Services: Michael brings extensive experience in business development, client management, marketing and implementation of solutions for family offices from roles Ascent Private Capital Management, Citi Private Bank and EY.

 

F2 Strategy Announces Key Leadership Appointments Following Recent Acquisitions: F2 Strategy has appointed Jay Halbert as its new Chief Financial Officer. Halbert brings over 20 years of leadership experience and will oversee the company’s financial operations. He previously served as Executive Vice President at Alkemy X and held positions at Northeast Building Products and Comcast Spectacor. F2 Strategy also promoted Martha Blenkush to Chief of Staff, who will oversee areas including technology map strategy, acquisition integrations, and organizational alignment. These appointments follow other recent leadership additions of Laura Korbel as President and Jeremy Jackson as Chief Marketing Officer, following the acquisition of SKY Marketing Consultants.  They mark a new phase of growth for F2 Strategy following its deal with Renovus Capital Partners and the acquisition of Oakbrook Solutions in June 2023.

 

William Ercolano Joins Portfolio BI as Chief Technology Officer: Ercolano comes from Eze Castle Integration (ECI), where he was vice president of client technology and has over 18 years of experience in financial technology. Portfolio BI offers software and management support to the alternative assets industry, providing MSP services, Enterprise Data Management, OMS and PMS platforms.

 

Alkymi Strengthens Team: Alkymi added two new members to their team: George Chedzhemov is joining as VP of client success and Dave Kanto as strategic account director. George brings over 25 years of startup experience and scaling partnerships, including at BigID, where developed a comprehensive post-sales department. Dave brings a wealth of experience from FIS and Nasdaq, where he served as Global Head of Private Markets Sales, focusing on Hedge Funds & Private Equity.

 

Foundation Source Bolsters Leadership: Foundation Source, specializing in philanthropy technology, appointed Lou D’Addario as Chief Revenue Officer and Warren Bailey as Chief Information Security Officer. D’Addario will focus on integrating philanthropic technology into financial enterprises, leveraging his extensive fintech experience. Bailey, with his strong background in technology and cybersecurity, will enhance the company’s security and risk management as it grows. These appointments come after the firm, now a GTCR portfolio company since September 2023, expanded its services by acquiring PG Calc to include planned giving solutions.

 

New Director for Switzerland at QPLIX: Sener Arslan has been named the director for Switzerland at QPLIX, leading the platform’s Swiss sales focusing on banks, wealth managers, and family offices. His extensive experience includes roles as CEO at Taurus Wealth’s Swiss branch and COO for the group, with earlier positions at Expersoft Systems and Lion Value Partners. Arslan’s appointment aligns with QPLIX’s ambition to dominate the European wealth management software market.

 

Jesse Clark Moves to eMinutes as Director of Business Development: After nearly 8 years at City National Bank, Jesse Clark joined eMinutes as director of business development. eMinutes is a tech-enabled corporate law firm that forms and maintains corporations and LLCs. The firm handles some 50,000 entities and is gearing up for increased demand in filings due to BOI reporting requirements. 

 

 

New Clients 

 

Gresham Partners Adopts d1g1t’s platform: Gresham Partners, a multi-family office based in Chicago, has selected d1g1t Inc.’s wealth management platform to enhance its offerings for ultra-high-net-worth clients. This selection highlights the platform’s comprehensive features, including performance reporting, portfolio management, trading, billing, compliance, and advanced digital portals for both advisors and clients. Gresham, which manages approximately $9 billion in assets, provides investment and wealth planning services to around 120 ultra-high-net-worth families and individuals.

 

Glenmede Partners with SUBSCRIBE: Glenmede has teamed up with SUBSCRIBE to enhance its alternative investment.. This partnership focuses on digital onboarding and simplifying the process for clients investing in private market funds. Glenmede manages $45.5 billion in assets for high-net-worth individuals, families, family offices, as well as endowments, foundations, and institutional clients. Another client recently won by SUBSCRIBE is Leon Capital Group – a diversified holding company for a privately-owned group of entities in healthcare, real estate, and technology investments, based in Dallas, Texas. 

 

Summit Financial Partners with Opto and Arch to Boost Private Markets Offerings for HNW Clients: Summit Financial has upgraded its private markets offering through a collaboration with Opto and Arch. This enhancement supports advisors with investment options in private equity, real estate, and venture capital, targeting high-net-worth clients. Summit Financial is an independent advisory firm providing services and technology to independent advisors. 

 

 

Watching 

ProTrustee – digital trust management platform has a new website about to break some news